Oh for the Necromancer Days of yore...Follow

I don't know if any of you were ever EverQuest I players, but that's where I got my start in the world of MMORPG's. Alas while I absolutely love EverQuest II, I rarely play my poor necromancer that was the very first character I rolled on EQII servers. With all the excitement of a kid at Christmas time I carefully made my toon look as close as I could to my old necromancer in EQI, so excited to finally have a graphics engine worthy of SOE's games...

Now, I know that necromancers are still a deadly class in EQII, the play-style is just so drastically different from that of EQ I that I find myself hardly ever playing that toon! I'll occasionally dust her off when one of my friends needs a travelling companion that is closer to their level. And I still play her once in a blue moon, but I have a love/hate relationship with the necro build in EQ II.

Why do you ask? Gone are the days of fear-kiting or agro -kiting that was the bread and butter of the necromancer class in EQI. Being able to fear or agro kite in some of the deadliest zones in EQ I with nary a death or scratch made me love my necromancer. I'd even be the "bait" on some of the raids to keep the mob busy while the rest of the crew hammered on the mob.

Those of you that have played EQI will understand I'm sure of what I speak. Those of you that haven't need to get a station pass and install EQ1 to see the differences I'm talking about.

I still play my little necro in EQII now and again, but the play style of a necro in EQI has yet to be matched by any class in EQII.

Of course I'm certain that all the bardic classes who played in EQI, lament the same fate. Perhaps we'll band together and see how much trouble we can get into attempting to kite in EQII. If we are unsuccessful at least it will be good entertainment!

Oh yes, I remember the good ol necros from EQ1. Once you got a horse, and thus always counted as sitting, you became a mana battery.

Necromancers had the highest mana regen of all the magic using classes, and their spells ironicaly seemed to have the lowest cost in mana, while nomraly lasting a fairly good lenght of time. That let them pop off all their good spells, then spend the next few seconds pumping ungodly amounts of mana into the other casters who could do more instant damage, but had smaller pools and higher mana costs.

All the while rarely getting low on mana.

Everyone wanted to be friends with necromancers, if not for the mana, then for the corpse locating and summoning ability.

I made a good deal of Plat at low levels selling my services for that.